Bloomberg moves Delhi High Court against order to remove news report on accounting irregularity at Zee Entertainment

Bloomberg has moved the Delhi High Court against the order directing it to remove an article alleging that the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) found accounting irregularities of nearly US $240 million at Zee Entertainment..Senior Advocate Rajiv Nayar mentioned the matter on Wednesday before a Bench of Acting Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora for urgent listing. The Court allowed the request and said that the matter will be heard on Thursday (March 7). .Nayar told the Court that the order passed by the trial court in Zee's defamation case is without any reason and that the district judge had ordered the news article to be removed within a week. .The article titled India Regulator Uncovers $241 Million Accounting Issue at Zee was published by Bloomberg on February 21, 2024.The story said that SEBI had “found a hole of more than $240 million in the accounts of Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd”.Citing sources, Bloomberg had said that the market regulator has alleged that more than $241 million was missing from the Zee Entertainment accounts with no proper transaction history shown for the amount..Zee had sued Bloomberg and its journalists Anto Antony, Saikat Das and Preeti Singh.It told the court that the article was defamatory and that SEBI has not rendered any finding against Zee. It was argued that the article claims that SEBI has unearthed large financial bungling when no such finding has been disclosed.Zee contended that an interim order dated June 12, 2023 and confirmatory order dated August 14, 2023 was passed by SEBI against one individual promoter and one key managerial personnel (KMP), relieving them from holding any key managerial position in any listed companies or their subsidiaries.However, Zee was not issued any notice by the SEBI in the said proceedings, it was pointed out..A Delhi court had on March 1 passed an ex parte order directing Bloomberg to take down the news report which claimed that SEBI had uncovered accounting irregularities to the tune of more than US $240 million at Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited.